{"id":99582,"date":"2025-10-23T16:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T16:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/99582\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T16:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T16:22:08","slug":"clayton-mcmillan-says-jack-crowley-deserves-to-start-for-ireland-against-new-zealand-in-chicago-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/99582\/","title":{"rendered":"Clayton McMillan says Jack Crowley deserves to start for Ireland against New Zealand in Chicago \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Munster head coach Clayton McMillan<\/a> believes Jack Crowley<\/a> deserves his chance in the Ireland<\/a> number 10 shirt against New Zealand <\/a>at Soldier Field in Chicago on Saturday week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, on the evidence of what I\u2019ve seen and what I saw on the weekend [against Leinster], I think he deserves an opportunity to jump in the number 10 jersey for Ireland. Obviously that\u2019s not my decision to make, but I\u2019m not sure what else he could have done if last week was an audition.\u201d<\/p>\n

McMillan also expanded on Crowley\u2019s importance to his province.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of a number of people that are critical to the success of Munster moving forward. The success of the team is never on one person\u2019s shoulders, you need a good cluster of leadership, you need cohesion and cohesion comes from building a squad that is together for a while. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some young guys that have been coming through the system, there\u2019s some old guys that are still around here and we just need to make sure that when things get challenging we don\u2019t throw the baby out with the bathwater. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know we\u2019ve got good people in the building, we\u2019ve just got to ride the highs and the lows, find that consistency and obviously Jack and Tadhg [Beirne], Craig Casey and a number of others are all integral to providing some leadership that we need to get to where we want.\u201d<\/p>\n

McMillan has made seven changes to the Munster<\/a> starting XV from that statement bonus-point win over Leinster<\/a> at Croke Park for their second consecutive interpro derby when hosting Connacht<\/a> at Thomond Park on Saturday (kick-off 7.45pm).<\/p>\n

The unlucky Brian Gleeson not only misses out on the trip to Chicago with the Irish squad but will be sidelined for six to 10 weeks due to the elbow injury he suffered last Saturday. <\/p>\n

\"Munster'sMunster’s Brian Gleeson leaves the pitch due to an elbow injury during the game against Leinster. Photograph: Dan Sheridan\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Edwin Edogbo also missed out on the trip to Chicago due to the concussion he suffered in Croke Park on his first start since December 2023, while winger Andrew Smith and hooker Diarmuid Barron were other casualties from last Saturday.<\/p>\n

Against that John Hodnett and Diarmuid Kilgallen both start on their first appearances of the campaign after recovering from injury.<\/p>\n

With Beirne, Crowley and Tom Farrell among the Irish squad in Chicago, as well as last weekend\u2019s absentees Casey and Thomas Ahern, the side sees Alex Nankivell, JJ Hanrahan, Lee Barron, Jean Kleyn and Gavin Coombes promoted from the bench to the starting XV.<\/p>\n

Jack O\u2019Donoghue assumes the captaincy from Beirne and academy scrumhalf Jake O\u2019Riordan is set for his Munster debut off the bench. The 20-year-old product of Bruff RFC, St Munchin\u2019s College and UL Bohs now plays for Young Munster in the Energia All-Ireland League.<\/p>\n

Evan O\u2019Connell and Shay McCarthy are also in line for their first appearances of the season, which means Munster are on course to use 41 players over the first five rounds of the URC season.<\/p>\n

Gleeson has undergone surgery for what McMillan described as \u201ca relatively nasty elbow fracture\u201d and estimated a return around Christmas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really unfortunate after he was named in a supporting role for the Irish team and the time he was out on the field [against Leinster] he was impressive. That\u2019s a setback but that happens in rugby. We are grateful we\u2019ve got someone with the experience of Gavin Coombes to come in and continue the good work he\u2019s been doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edogbo should return for the game against the Stormers on November 29th while scrumhalf Paddy Patterson was \u201ca little under the weather\u201d. Diarmuid Barron has a minor neck strain and Smith suffered hamstring and MCL injuries. <\/p>\n

\"Munster'sMunster’s Gavin Coombes celebrates the win over Leinster at Croke Park. Photograph: Tom Maher\/Inpho <\/p>\n

After reaching such an evident emotional high last week, McMillan maintained it had been \u201cpretty easy\u201d for the squad to switch its focus to a game against Connacht.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were delighted with the outcome on the weekend but come Monday, we just reviewed the game, like we would every other week, and just keep reminding ourselves that\u2019s in the rear vision mirror now. And for all the pats on the back it\u2019s a short distance from that to a kick up the backside if we don\u2019t get the job done again this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connacht have lost two of their three games to date to sit 11 points adrift of Munster. Yet McMillan and his players are affording their dangerous neighbours every respect. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey potentially haven\u2019t got the outcomes they\u2019ve wanted from the first few rounds but they certainly haven\u2019t been far away. They were unlucky last week,\u201d he said in reference to their 28-27 defeat by the Bulls.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the guys have talked about the rich history between Connacht and Munster and it\u2019s never an easy game. We are expecting them at their best and we\u2019ll need to be at ours if we want the desired outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got threats right across the park and the best performing lineout in the competition. It has been for a number of years. They\u2019re a dangerous side and I know a fair bit about Josh Ioane, I coached him for a number of years and I\u2019m well aware of what he can bring to the table and how he can stress opposition teams. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t be a team that\u2019s easily satisfied. We\u2019ve just got to keep going out the next week and chasing that feeling of being proud of our performance and getting better.\u201d<\/p>\n

MUNSTER (v Connacht): Shane Daly; Diarmuid Kilgallen, Dan Kelly, Alex Nankivell, Thaakir Abrahams; JJ Hanrahan, Ethan Coughlan; Michael Milne, Lee Barron, John Ryan; Jean Kleyn, Fineen Wycherley; Jack O\u2019Donoghue (capt), John Hodnett, Gavin Coombes.<\/p>\n

Replacements: Niall Scannell, Jeremy Loughman, Ronan Foxe, Evan O\u2019Connell, Ruadhan Quinn, Jake O\u2019Riordan, Tony Butler, Shay McCarthy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Munster head coach Clayton McMillan believes Jack Crowley deserves his chance in the Ireland number 10 shirt against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11896,28454,61,60,1449,43771,11287,11897,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-99582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-clayton-mcmillan","9":"tag-connacht-rugby","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-ireland-rugby","13":"tag-jack-crowley","14":"tag-leinster-rugby","15":"tag-munster-rugby","16":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}